Keo Borin, Li Bin, Younis Waqas
School of Economics and Trade, Hunan University, Changsha, China.
PLoS One. 2025 Jan 24;20(1):e0311754. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0311754. eCollection 2025.
High trade costs pose substantial barriers to the process of trade liberalization. This study aims to measure trade costs and explore the driving forces behind the growth of bilateral trade between Cambodia and its top 30 trading partners from 1993 to 2019. Using a micro-founded measure of trade costs derived from the gravity model, we find that Cambodia's average trade costs decreased by 35.43 percent between 1993 and 2019. Fluctuations in average trade costs persisted until 2014, despite Cambodia's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2004. Since then, these costs have declined more rapidly. Cambodia's bilateral trade costs are lower with its major trading partners in Southeast Asia and East Asia than with those in South Asia, Oceania, Europe, and North America. Cambodia's average trade costs with developing and emerging economies are lower than those with developed economies. Between 2014 and 2019, Cambodia experienced a notable decline in average trade costs with trading partners along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) corridors by 34.78 percent, twice as fast as with non-BRI trading partners. Regarding the decomposition of trade growth, we find that the expansion of Cambodian trade over the period from 1993 to 2019 was driven by three factors: the rise in income (59.65 percent), the decline in trade costs (56.69 percent), and the decline in multilateral resistance (-16.34 percent). The findings of this study have significant implications for a better understanding of Cambodia's development process toward global trade integration over the past two decades. Our results suggest that Cambodia can optimize its trade expansion potential by focusing on its relations with trading partners exhibiting high economic growth potential and those showing substantial reductions in trade costs.
高昂的贸易成本对贸易自由化进程构成了巨大障碍。本研究旨在衡量贸易成本，并探究1993年至2019年柬埔寨与其前30大贸易伙伴之间双边贸易增长背后的驱动因素。通过使用源自引力模型的微观基础贸易成本衡量方法，我们发现1993年至2019年间柬埔寨的平均贸易成本下降了35.43%。尽管柬埔寨于2004年加入了世界贸易组织（WTO），但平均贸易成本的波动一直持续到2014年。从那时起，这些成本下降得更快。柬埔寨与东南亚和东亚主要贸易伙伴的双边贸易成本低于与南亚、大洋洲、欧洲和北美的贸易伙伴。柬埔寨与发展中经济体和新兴经济体的平均贸易成本低于与发达经济体的成本。2014年至2019年间，柬埔寨与“一带一路”倡议（BRI）沿线贸易伙伴的平均贸易成本显著下降了34.78%，下降速度是非“一带一路”贸易伙伴的两倍。关于贸易增长的分解，我们发现1993年至2019年期间柬埔寨贸易扩张的驱动因素有三个：收入增长（59.65%）、贸易成本下降（56.69%）和多边阻力下降（-16.34%）。本研究结果对于更好地理解柬埔寨过去二十年迈向全球贸易一体化的发展进程具有重要意义。我们的结果表明，柬埔寨可以通过专注于与具有高经济增长潜力和贸易成本大幅降低的贸易伙伴的关系来优化其贸易扩张潜力。
